Frosty relations
by Hawk
Summary: An Martial Artist who never backs down and a suave genius with a stubborn streak a mile wide, a match made in heaven? Perhaps not. Ranma and Nabiki has a lot of compromising to do now when they've wound up engaged to each other for the long run.


Frosty Relations R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: An uncouth Martial Artist who never backs down and a suave genius with a stubborn streak a mile wide, a match made in heaven? Well, not really. Ranma and Nabiki has a lot of compromising to do now when they've wound up engaged to each other for the long run.

Disclaimer: Ranma ½, the characters and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were! The story is mine though, all mine. This story deals with mature subject matters and violence. If this disturbs you, don't read. But if it does, then why the heck are you watching the show/reading the manga in the first place?

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860 or through e-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dot com, more stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above if you're reading this on fanfiction dot net.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+

* * *

Chapter One:

"For a measly 5000 Yen consolation fee, I'll break up with you right now." Nabiki offered.

"Nabiki..." Ranma said, rubbing his right temple. "Stop kidding around, Nabiki. Why would I want to break up with you for? You're the best thing that ever happened to me." he continued with a nervous chuckle, trying and failing badly, to keep the hesitation and nervousity inside him hidden from Nabiki.

"Oh? Well, in that case..." Nabiki responded, sliding up towards the railing Ranma was leaning against. "Kiss me..." she purred suggestively, stroking his chest with a rowing hand, smirking up at him.

"Ki-ki-kiss you! Why!" Ranma exclaimed, taking a step back from her. This time he knew that he'd failed really badly, there was no way that came out as anything but nervous and hesitant. Probably a little scared as well, though that wasn't it, of course. Saotome Ranma wasn't scared of anything!

Well, other then of cats and Akane's cooking... But those two were really special cases!

"Well, if you really don't want to break up with me... I want you to prove your love for me." Nabiki replied. "With a kiss..." she purred, sidling closer to him, her hips swaying seductively.

"Kiss?" Ranma stupidly repeated incredulously, then blinked as something suddenly became instantly clear to him. His brain was, for the moment, working at Chestnut Fist speed and he reached a conclusion before Nabiki had time to do more then open her mouth again, no doubt to blurt out something that would be his downfall in this particular encounter with her. "Okay, love." he hastily interjected, darted forward and sealed his lips to hers before she had time to react.

While he wasn't quite sure just why she was asking for a kiss, he did realize that it was a part of some scheme of hers, the success of which no doubt depended on him not kissing her. She knew him, she knew that he'd most likely react with apprehension and thus, counted on it for something. So if he did the exact opposite of what she expected him to, her scheme would fail. Right? The sudden mental clarity had left him the moment his lips touched her and now he found it increasingly hard to think about anything but how incredibly good it felt.

/If I had known how good kissing felt when one gets really into it, I wouldn't have spent so much energy keeping Shampoo off me/ was the last semi-intelligent thought he had for quite a while.

Nabiki let out a stunned 'Mghlf', her eyes opening up wide as she suddenly found herself in the middle of a passionate lip lock. Her knees trembled as Ranma's tongue unexpectedly darted into her mouth, caressing and exploring the territory it now appeared to claim as its own. /OHMYGOD/ roared in her mind as her body betrayed her. She was merely a stunned passenger in the back of her own head as her body started responding and participating in the kiss. She didn't know when her hands had risen up, moved to the back of his head and buried themselves in his hair, only that this was now where they were.

/Sweet heavens! If I could bottle and sell this, I'd be... Be... Be my own best customer.../ she thought in complete amazement. She was faintly aware that one of his hands was splayed possessively on her neck and that the other was roaming, moving lower and lower by the second. If it went any lower, he'd have her ass in his ha... /Hello/ she thought as his right hand trailed over the territory in question, giving it a tentative squeeze.

That was enough to jump-start her acute mental processes and cause her to fully grasp the situation they were in. With a startled yelp, she extracted herself and pushed herself away, staggering backwards a few steps before she looked up at him with a shocked expression on her face.

"Damn it, Saotome. What was that all about?" she demanded, one hand clutched to her chest as she wondered if her wildly beating heart would ever return to a more normal pace. She absently licked her lips and cursed herself for doing so. /Damn it indeed! Who the hell knew the wimp had it in him/

"You were the one who asked for a kiss." Ranma muttered, blinked several times and sprouted a goofy smile as some semblance of mental coherency started to return to the young Martial Artist. "Not bad, eh?" he inquired, then grinned. "Neh, Biki-chan?" he finished.

"Yeah, it was..." she started, then stopped herself as she realized what she was admitting to! "What I meant was, why the hell did you kiss me! You weren't supposed to kiss me! You were supposed to be your usual wimpy self and chicken out!" Nabiki exclaimed, horrified at how out of control she was, how emotional she was feeling. She hadn't felt like this in... For... In... A long time, she realized. /A very long time./

Had it truly been that long since she last allowed herself to experience an actual emotion to the fullest?

"You weren't supposed to kiss me..." she repeated in a faint tone of voice, shuddering at the memory of that kiss. That incredible kiss!

"If you didn't want it, then why the hell did you ask for it?" Ranma snapped at her and she flinched away from him.

Where had things gone wrong? Why was this happening? Where was her control? She needed control! She had to be in control! She was Tendo Nabiki, she was always in control!

Ranma could only watch in complete and utter amazement as Nabiki seemed to crumble under his intense scrutiny. Her fabled Emotionless Bitch Queen facade was nowhere in sight as she slowly fell to her knees, hugged herself and started crying, muttering something he could barely make out parts of, something about needs and control, as she slowly swayed back and forth.

"Hey... Nabiki? C'mon, don't... Oh, no. Please don't... Not tears, not... Not... Not from you. You don't cry, Nabiki. You never cry! C'mon." Ranma pleaded with her, flinching as she let out an audible sob, then started crying even harder. "Aw, man!" he muttered, then hesitantly reached out with one hand.

It hovered over her shoulder for a while, dipping up and down as Ranma hastily went over his options, before he finally sighed and allowed the hand to finally drop to her shoulder.

This unleashed an all-out bawl and Nabiki surged up and towards him, nuzzling her face into his chest as her hands clutched his shirt in a grip of iron, pulling herself harder into his chest.

"Aw, man..." Ranma repeated under his breath. /I sure hope Akane never finds out about this! She'd have my head/ he thought, then grinned for a split second. /Or force-feed me something she made. I dunno which would be worse./ was his bemused addition, before the mood of the current situation sobered him up.

/She really is Soun's daughter.../ Ranma reflected as he moved to wrap his arms around her, finding himself with an armful of crying Nabiki. It was nowhere near as bad as Soun at his worst, but she was emitting full-body sobs, her entire body shaking against him as she broke down completely.

* * *

"A kiss?" Akane muttered to herself. "What the heck is she up to n..." she began, but trailed off as the impossible happened.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Her brain just wouldn't accept what her eyes were seeing. Where something even remotely similar to this would ordinarily send her straight into a berserker rage, something about actually seeing something precisely like this just completely stumped her.

She'd always been worried about, if not this precisely, then at least something like this. What with Ranma always calling her uncute, comparing her to various unflattering animals, belittling her Martial Arts abilities, needling her for her complete lack of grace and, of course, her cooking, she'd grown increasingly insecure since first meeting him. What complicated things were that she really did like him. She wasn't quite sure if it was a marriage kind of like, but suspected that if it wasn't enough now, then at least it might very well grow to be more then enough given a little time.

Out of that, grew a sense of possessiveness towards Ranma. She saw him as hers, her fiancée, her future husband, her prospective mate. A mate who constantly talked her down, made her feel insecure and thus, made her constantly worried that he'd leave her for someone else, someone better.

This made her leap to conclusions based on very little, entirely faulty or even no evidence. Conclusions which usually led to her lashing out at Ranma, either verbally or more rarely, physically. But when faced with the very vivid and fully undeniable reality of him being in active pursuit of another woman, she just shut down and blanked out. He wasn't the one being kissed here for once, he was the one who kissed! Something she did have to admit that she'd never seen before. He'd never been an active participant before, but now he was. And that both shocked and scared the hell out of Akane.

If it had been one of his regular suitors, her familiarity with similar situations might have got her through on experience and force of habit, causing her to rush out and sock him a good one. But Nabiki? Her own sister? That was completely out of the blue, a completely new player on the romantic field. To make it even worse, Akane herself had no real claim on Ranma at the moment. She wasn't his fiancée, Nabiki was! And from the looks of things, Nabiki certainly didn't mind this new arrangement.

Akane swallowed, the Saotome-Tendo agreement didn't specify that she was the one who had to marry Ranma, that was just how things had turned out after first meeting the Saotomes. But now she was faced with the horrible reality of the situation once again, the agreement was merely for a marriage between the Saotome-Tendo children, it didn't specify which ones. At the moment, Akane was out of the running and Nabiki was in. Even if Nabiki got out, it might not necessarily bring Akane back in the game, the task could just as well fall upon Kasumi.

And Akane instinctively knew what would be the result of that!

The fathers were idiots, if they had truly wanted the union to go through, all they had to do was to make Kasumi the chosen fiancée. She wouldn't protest against the union, after all, it just wouldn't be proper to do so. And if Kasumi didn't speak up against it, Ranma certainly wouldn't, Akane just knew that he wouldn't.

He really was kind at heart, despite how he acted and went on most of the time, despite what she claimed about him. No, he'd never protest either, for fear of offending or hurting Kasumi. Nobody wanted to hurt Kasumi, the very notion of it made Akane cringe in horror. She looked up to Kasumi, in a way, she was even dearer to her then mother had been. For in Kasumi, she had both her beloved older sister and a mother-figure, all wrapped into one lovely smiling package. She suspected Ranma felt the same, or something very much like it.

No, Ranma would rather cut his own heart out then hurt Kasumi, Akane knew this. Kasumi kept Ranma fed, she cleaned his clothes, she tidied up his room, she made his futon, she gave him hot water, she filled his bath, she tended to his wounds and she never gave him any grief, just smiles and a lot of kindness. Something he hadn't had in his life since his father took him on a ten-year training journey.

Akane narrowed her eyes suspiciously, perhaps Nabiki wasn't the only one of her sisters who had been lusting after her fiancée? She blinked at that, then shook her head in dismay. Kasumi, lusting? If she hadn't been so shocked still, she would have laughed.

She peeked over at Ranma and Nabiki again, stunned once again to discover Nabiki, her 'emotionless mercenary' sister, actually crying. /Crying? Nabiki! No, that can't be right. I can't remember her ever crying in front of someone, not since the funeral/

It was impossible. She was just acting. Of course. An act, that was all it was. Akane was sure of it. Any moment now, she'd do something, ask Ranma for something and simpering fool that he was, he'd agree instantly. Tears always made him crumble.

Only...

Nabiki didn't stop crying.

Surely she would have stopped by now, if it was all an act? But if it wasn't, then it meant that...

Nabiki was crying.

Nabiki was one of the strongest people Akane knew. She wouldn't cry easily, Akane was sure of that. So if she was crying now, that meant something horrible must have taken place. Ranma had kissed her, then they'd talked, though Akane hadn't heard a single word of it. She'd been too distracted, too caught up in her own mind to really register what was going on around her.

So, something Ranma said had upset Nabiki.

Something Ranma said had made Nabiki cry.

Her battle aura flared and she clenched her fists, preparing to rush over and clobber the jerk into a bloody pulp, when she suddenly became witness to Nabiki grasping Ranma's head and pulling him down, sealing her lips to his.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

* * *

She was crying.

Nabiki never cried!

But, now that she'd started to cry, she just didn't know what to do in order to make it stop.

Nabiki was faintly aware of holding on to Ranma, not willing to let him go. Her mind, her prized grade-A mind, was in shambles and her thoughts in wild disarray. She had to make it stop somehow, somehow! She hadn't been able to think clearly since that kiss. Perhaps another would get everything back to normal?

Ordinarily, a 'plan' like that would never cross Nabiki's mind. However, things were far from normal now.

This time, she was the one who kissed him.

And though her tears didn't actually stop, she was too distracted too notice.

* * *

Ranma sighed in confusion as he suddenly found himself standing with a listless girl in his arms, wondering just what the hell had gone wrong. While he certainly wasn't the most experienced man in the world when it came to women and was even less experienced when it came to kissing just mentioned girls, he didn't think that he was such a bad kisser that he'd drive them to tears and sleep!

Because when Nabiki was done crying and unexpectedly kissing him from out of the blue in mid-cry, she'd slumped against him and fallen asleep in his arms. Problem was, he couldn't think of anything else that could have done it either. He hadn't said anything so bad that Nabiki should have reacted like she did, so it had to be his kisses that did it!

"Is she all right?" a voice suddenly intruded upon his thoughts and Ranma started wondering how long he had left to live, as he recognized Akane's voice.

"Ahhhh, I dunno..." Ranma admitted after a few moments when he understood that she wasn't about to instantly dismember him. "She just fell asleep..." he grunted.

"You should take her home without being seen. If I know her right, she wouldn't want anyone at school finding out about this." Akane hinted, looking over at Nabikis tear-streaked cheeks with an odd sort of detached curiosity that Ranma found highly unnerving.

Akane did as well.

One moment, she'd been about to sock him one, the next, Nabiki had kissed him.

That had stopped her charge before it even had time to start and she now found herself in a state of mind she couldn't recall ever experiencing before. She wondered if this was what it felt like to have an out-of-body-experience, she didn't feel as if her body, feelings and emotions were her own at the moment. She felt as if she'd risen above all of that, like such paltry human trappings were beneath her at the moment.

She was faintly worried about Nabiki, but it was such a distant feeling that her worry came more from the logical side of her brain that knew that it would be bad if something were to happen from Nabiki, then the more emotional side of Akane that would have cared because Nabiki was her sister.

She could feel faint stirrings of anger, but it was as if that anger was far, far, far away. So far away that she needn't be concerned over it.

"Yeah... Uh, okay..." Ranma stuttered out, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead as he wondered just why he hadn't been slugged or yelled at yet. "Uh, this 'aint what it looks like?" he attempted none the less.

"No doubt." Akane agreed with an absent nod. "Well, you had better get her back home." she continued with a faint shrug of her shoulders. "Try not to drop her." was all she said before she walked off, heading back into school.

Ranma was frozen stiff in shock for nearly half a minute, before he blinked and shook his head.

"Yikes, I think I broke her..." he mumbled to herself, then looked down at Nabiki. "Broke them..." he amended his statement somewhat, scratching the back of his head. He really wanted to run off after Akane, to see if she was all right. But, she appeared capable to move about on her own at the very least, Nabiki did not. He still debated with himself for a few moments about stashing Nabiki away into a tool shed, hiding her on the roof to the stairwell or something, so he could go off after Akane, but finally decided to take Akane's advice and take Nabiki back home.

A brief look at her Ki-patterns had confirmed that there was nothing physically wrong with her, otherwise he'd have taken her straight to doc Tofu's. But she was fine, she just didn't want to be awake for some odd reason. Something her mind had encountered had been too rough to handle and so, it had shut itself down for self protection. Sorta like his own did with cats, only he had his own 'cat' that could handle matters while his own mind was turned off. Nabiki did not.

"Oh well, better get going before somebody else comes up here." he decided, picked up Nabiki and took a running jump off the building, heading for the Tendo dojo with his unconscious fiancée in his arms.

The End! ( For now... )


End file.
